


4

by inkpenny



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:36:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkpenny/pseuds/inkpenny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra dreams of Asami four times after she dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	4

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in an AU where Korra does not get her bending back, and Asami was killed in the mecha fight with Hiroshi from the finale.

Korra dreams of Asami four times after she dies.

She thinks it strange, considering how infrequently they spent time together—how little she actually knew Asami prior to her death—but the dreams are unstoppable, slipping through her mind like runny calligraphy ink.

 

_i_

The day after Amon has taken her bending, Korra returns to her home in the Southern Water Tribe. (Only a few hours after Hiroshi has killed his only child and slats of steel and glass have warped what is left of her body into something crude and unrecognizable.) Korra is nestled in her mother’s arms, drifting in and out of sleep as her father’s thumb tattoos the shape of a small circle into the center of her palm.

It isn’t until she watches the fire in the hearth distort into something resembling a face that she realizes she’s dreaming. The prickly, sweltering sensation of heat channels through her veins as the light fills her mind. The flames slink from the sooty ground across the stitched mats that line the length of the floor, setting them alight. How wretched it is, she thinks, how horribly unjust that she can  _feel_  the fire building within her, pulsating in low in her belly, only to ebb and die when it reaches her fingertips. The element is suddenly so alien to her as thick, bitter smoke climbs down her throat and congests her lungs, scorches her eyes. Without the crutch of her bending, the fire is suddenly a stranger—quick and unpredictable as it licks up the walls, engulfing the tapestries and painted clay wall hangings that she helped her parents make as a child.

When the room is filled with flame and Korra’s eyes are so raw and swollen with tears that she can no longer see, she feels the skin of soft lips against her temple.

 

She hardly has a moment to process it before she feels a startling coldness shock her awake. Her eyes open slowly to see Katara, who has evidently just doused her with a wave of frigid water. Another gelatinous bubble materializes around her right hand, lifted into the air for a second go. Tears run down her weathered cheeks, and her voice is choked with horror.

“Korra, are you all right?  _Korra_?”

Korra dimly realizes that she is strung out upon the hard floor, and her that body seizes violently every few seconds. She feels the solid and bruising grip of different pairs of hands on her limbs, bracing her for the impact of her convulsions.

Somewhere in the room, she hears her mother start to cry.

 

_ii_

“How have things been without your bending?” Asami asks. The question is lilting and blunt over the roar of the satocycle.

“Unbearable,” Korra mutters. She can’t even hear herself, but Asami still responds.

“Welcome to the club!” she laughs, although Korra doesn’t find it very funny and actually rather cruel. But there is no malice in Asami’s voice, and she moves her hand to squeeze the one that Korra has looped around her waist.

Asami drives with expert ease along the edges of craggy cliffs that look out over a pitch-black sea. The dimensions of the landscape shift around them every so often, shrinking the road to a nightmarish sliver of gravel and sand before returning to normal. The sight of it disquiets Korra, and she has already sworn not to look over the brink at the shrouded pit of trees and treacherous undergrowth resting miles below them. Asami squeezes her hand again.

“When I was little,” she begins casually, as if this isn’t the most terrifying situation she’s ever been in, “I liked this earthbender girl in one of my classes so much that I decided I would just learn to earthbend to impress her.” Some gravel crumbles beneath the tires of the satocycle and Korra buries her face in Asami’s neck, but the heiress only accelerates through it until they are on solid ground again.

“I was at it for weeks before it all sort of culminated in me breaking my foot against a boulder. Guess you could say that marked the end of my bending training.”

A stilted quiet settles between them while Korra tries to figure out how to respond, moving against the leather of Asami’s jacket. The material catches the cold easily, chilling Korra when she rests her chin upon Asami’s shoulder in an act of greater intimacy than she believed herself capable with the elder girl.

“Really?” Asami prods, her tone playful, “No comment, Avatar Korra? I thought for sure that you’d have something to contribute on my moment of childhood humiliation.”

“Sorry,” Korra says as her lips finally quirk in a reluctant grin. “I’m still kind of stuck on the idea of you trying to impress anyone and not succeeding—the idea of you needing to impress anyone at all, really.”

Asami snorts and turns her head towards Korra’s, winding her hands around the handlebars of the satocycle. Korra starts at the feeling of Asami’s cheek suddenly touching hers—the dull vibration of words against her skin when she speaks again.

“Believe it, Avatar,” she murmurs with a sense of closeness that makes Korra squirm. “She wound up carving her initials into a tree with some nonbender boy who didn’t waste his time trying to be something he wasn’t. All of that effort for naught. But such are the troubles of youth, no?”

As much as Korra wants to laugh with what she thinks might be equal parts genuine amusement and schadenfreude, the image of Asami Sato failing at something does not console her for long. Not when she remembers that she herself is no better off trudging around as the measly remnants of a once promising Avatar. Asami could probably do a better job earthbending than Korra could nowadays, broken foot and all. Maybe she could even start up lessons and give Korra a few pointers.

_But she’s gone now._

The thought creeps into Korra’s mind before she even realizes it’s there.

 

_iii_

The jazz club is hazy with cigarette smoke and the smell of alcohol hangs thickly in the air. Before she gains more awareness of her surroundings, Korra briefly misinterprets the source of the smoke and her spine goes still with the panic of reliving that first awful dream.

“Thought you could use a change of scenery,” Asami says, suddenly there. They sit at a table adorned with only a small lamp that does a meager job of helping Korra see into the dimly lit club.

“Did someone just slip up on telling management that electricity is a thing now?”

“They’re always like this,” Asami laughs as she lifts a glass of sake up to her lips and lets her eyes travel over Korra’s shoulder. Korra follows her gaze and turns to find a swamp of people flailing around on the dance floor. Unable to help herself, a laugh bubbles up out of her.

“What’s so funny?” Asami asks, although the look in her eyes says that she knows Korra thinks this is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever witnessed.

“They look like they’re getting attacked by a swarm of hornet beetles! Is that really what you city folk like to call ‘dancing’?”

“Well,  _excuse_   _me_ , Miss Avatar,” Asami teases, her scarlet lips blossoming into a smile. “Care to educate me on what’s customary on your home turf?”

“For your information,” Korra asserts, “For those of us lucky enough to be members of the Southern Water Tribe, dancing is a beloved custom upheld by centuries of rich culture and tradition. It’s more than just flitting across a dance floor and strutting around like an idiot with some random stranger! People spend years perfecting their technique so they can impress not just their partners, but their friends and families and ancestors too. Even the most aggressive dances that the warriors usually do are still so beautiful.”

She pauses the trace a cleft in the wood of the table with her thumb.

“You’ve got to really care about which dance you choose and who you dance with because that’s what makes it so special: it’s like a gift to the whole tribe, and to all of those that came before you.”

Asami blinks. Korra sighs.

“At least…that’s what Katara always told me.”

“You never got to experience it yourself?”

“Well, the Order of the White Lotus came to get me when I was four. I basically spent the majority of my life under the tutelage of people who wouldn’t know what fun was if it slapped them in the face. I didn’t have much time to be a normal water tribe kid, so everything I really know about my culture I learned from Katara. During my waterbending training, she would always take time to teach me about everything that I was missing out on.”

For the first time in the few months that she’s known Asami, Korra notices her face go completely blank. There is no promising gleam in her eye, and her lips do not quirk in their ever-present sweet smile. Instead, her gaze burns so hotly into Korra’s that the Avatar has to look away.

“I’m sorry, Korra.”

It’s a simple enough statement, but Korra senses much more behind it—something that far surpasses pity for her unusual childhood. She knows that she ought to return the sentiment, but her trepidation shames her into silence. A barely audible  _“Thanks, Asami”_  goes in its stead.

They sit quietly for a long time, and Korra thinks that they’re both too preoccupied by the wildness of the dance floor until she finds Asami staring at her. The gleam in her eye is back with a vengeance.

“Dance with me,” she suggests, getting so close to Korra that her long hair brushes the younger girl’s shoulder.

When Korra looks back out at the dance floor, she feels some competitiveness flare inside of her chest, but it strains against self-consciousness and fear.

“I don’t know, Asami…”

“ _Please_?” Asami entreats, enfolding Korra’s hands in hers. Korra can smell the spice of her perfume over the smoke. “I know this isn’t exactly the pinnacle of a cultural experience for you to have to go scuttle around with us city-dwellers, but would you indulge me for just a few minutes?”

“Asami, I—”

“One dance.”

Far be it from Korra to step down from a challenge—whether Asami instigates this one consciously or not—but this is untrodden territory for her. Silly as it may seem, she did not condemn the dancing out of tribe loyalty as much as she did out of a fear of the unknown. The unknown has become so much more terrifying without her bending. Even the airbending that she retains is foreign to her, and she is still prone to many missteps and failures. Aside from being the Avatar, living almost her entire life under the strict auspices of the White Lotus has deprived her of anything resembling a normal life. Anything that doesn’t involve bending is nigh unfathomable to her; a riddle much like a language she cannot understand.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why it has always been so difficult to understand Asami. It has always been so troublesome for Korra to comprehend something different from herself—to grasp that there are entities in the universe that operate independently of the one thing that she has always lived for.

And perhaps that is why Korra is so unhappy now: she is a stranger—unrecognizable even to herself.

At that thought, she reaches for her glass of sake and downs in one impulsive gulp, choking on the burn that it leaves in her throat. Asami slaps her on the back and gives a distinctly unladylike howl of excitement.

“Now that’s more like it!” she exclaims, reaching out to snatch Korra’s hand.

She stands to leave the table, wrenching Korra along with her as they approach the dance floor. Korra almost takes a moment to fall back and second-guess herself before the band starts up again, raucous and lively in the enormous hall. It’s a fight to the center of the dance floor through the tangle of twisting, frantic limbs, but Asami is determined, and Korra holds onto her hand like them not getting trampled to death depends on it.

When they finally arrive, it takes less than a second for Asami to begin mimicking the movements of the partygoers around her, kicking her legs about her and jerking so rapidly to the music that Korra doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to keep up. In spite of her first qualms, Korra is absolutely captivated once she watches Asami, who is so fluid and confident that Korra rather thinks she’s more of a medium for the music than the instruments in the band are. Her long hair flies around her with every quick progression; the beading of her dress catches the light and refracts little flecks of golden light across her bare skin. Korra’s mouth dries up, and she finds that she cannot will any part of her to move. Her arms and legs feel new and unused to movement, and all she can do is stand and stare.

Until Asami takes the initiative and pulls Korra flush against her taller form.

“Follow my lead,” she gasps between breaths, clasping Korra’s waist in one hand and taking her hand in the other. Korra can’t even respond, only nods mutely and tries to let herself fall into the pattern of the dance.

It takes Korra a minute or two to loosen up, even with the alcohol coursing through her and fizzling her nerve endings, but once she does, she is at a loss for how she will ever stop. As much as she wants to compare it to the bending that she’s lost, it is in fact so much more like airbending. There is such profound freedom she derives from being with Asami like this—such joy in contrast to the sorrow that burdens her elsewhere. Airbending, she thinks, which is still so unfamiliar to her despite her supposed mastery of it—so vastly unappreciated in the absence of the other elements—but so spectacular in all its mystery. For the first time in weeks, Korra accepts it without hesitation. She welcomes the luxury of happiness.

When the music finally dies down into a slower, sultrier tune, Asami rests her lips against Korra’s temple.

“You’re a natural,” she chuckles, short of breath as she threads her fingers through Korra’s. The haunting wail of the tsungi horn floats overhead, undeterred by the more metered punctuation of the rest of the band. The other couples on the dance floor shake their prior excitement away and draw nearer to each other. Korra looks too closely at hands weaving around loose limbs and pressing furtively into soft curves. (At the milky juncture of Asami’s neck and jaw.)

With a bit more gumption than she expects to muster, Korra rearranges their hands and takes the lead instead, grinning sheepishly when Asami’s eyebrow arches in surprise.

“ _Touché_ , Avatar Korra,” she laughs.

Korra wrinkles her nose. “Why do you always call me that now?”

“What?”

“ _Avatar Korra_ ,” Korra flourishes dramatically, rolling her eyes. “It’s so…stuffy! Not to mention that you never used to call me that when you were—”

The sentence stops abruptly on Korra’s tongue and the entire room comes to a standstill. In the span of a few seconds, the guests and the club shift dramatically before everything around them fades to black.

Dread numbs Korra’s body, and her hand trembles in Asami’s. She is startled by the warmth of Asami’s fingers against the slope of her chin, and soon realizes that her own hand is clenched into a fistful of Asami’s dress. Ears ringing, Korra wills herself not to lose whatever tenuous hold she has left on the dream before speaking again.

“Was it scary?”

The pause before Asami answers, while unsettling, is neither tense nor judgmental.

“Yes.”

_  
_

_iv_

The sun is hot against Korra’s back as she lies down and grasps blades of soft, cool grass.

Asami is sitting beside her with a hint of a smile on her face, eyes closed and head reclined. For the first time since the dreams started, Korra’s mind is a whirlwind of curiosity; she is dreadfully curious to know the true nature of Asami’s presence, and what it all means.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Asami asks. She has removed her jacket and sits in only her skirt and a thin silk shift. Her long hair is unpinned and tossed over one shoulder, a disheveled mess of dark waves.

Korra surveys the idyllic little scene around them and she finds that she must agree. Spectacular mountains and lush trees frame the clear lake that stretches out before them, and brilliantly red fire lilies sprout from the embankment where she and Asami rest.

“Yeah,” she sighs as Asami reaches over and runs her fingers through her dark brown hair. The gesture is so careful and sweet that a blush burns Korra’s cheeks. She hopes that she can blame the reaction at least in part to the heat as she buries her face in the back of her hand, but Asami doesn’t seem to mind when she unbinds Korra’s hair from its wolftails and combs her fingers fully through it.

“Hey,” Korra chides unconvincingly. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

Asami refuses to heed the warning and laughs gently, “What?”

As indignant and put upon as Korra thinks she should feel in such a position, Asami’s actions are not audacious, and she moves with great caution and reverence. Her knuckles graze the nape of Korra’s neck and ghost over her ears, never stopping in one place for too long before traveling elsewhere.

“Why are you here, Asami?” Korra asks. Although the question is plenty straightforward, Asami sidesteps it and traces the petal of a nearby lily. Her eyes flicker momentarily with discomfort, but when she regards Korra, her expression is serene.

“My mom used to braid these into my hair when I was little,” she reminisces, twisting a fire lily stem between her forefinger and thumb. Korra doesn’t take the bait.

“Asami, tell me.”

A thin crease cuts along the heiress’s brow and she smiles wryly, her gaze falling into her lap.

“Just trying to make up for lost time, I suppose.”

Her answer takes Korra by surprise. She isn’t sure what she was expecting—maybe some cockamamie dream logic that surpassed her basic understanding or a vague non-answer that would pique Korra’s interest even more—not the painfully human reasoning that Asami provides.

“Oh” is all that she can manage to reply. A guilty silence settles over her afterwards, leaving a prickly ache in the back of her head.

Asami does not challenge the quiet. They sit wordlessly for a few more minutes until Korra watches Asami pluck a small lily from the grass and place it in Korra’s hair. Her fingers busy themselves weaving the stem between the strands. Korra resists only slightly before giving in, her nose scrunched up in a weak imitation of annoyance.

“Stop,” she snickers. “It’ll look stupid.”

“Oh, yeah, and what a fight you’re putting up. How will I ever overcome you?”

Thoroughly unprepared to protest any more, Korra chuckles as Asami laces more lilies into her hair. The feeling, if at all possible, is even more pleasant than the one before; there is a marked fondness in the way that Asami manipulates the flowers so skillfully against Korra’s scalp.

“You’re awfully good at this.”

“Like I said, my mom used to do it for me when I was younger. Although I wasn’t nearly as cooperative as she might’ve hoped.” Asami finishes weaving in the last lily, and brushes her palm against Korra’s cheek. “We used to make outings to a place that looked a lot like this, and I would hardly sit still long enough for her to do it. Even after she was finished, I would just bolt for the lake and ruin all of her work.”

“What a well-tempered child.”

Asami shoves Korra’s shoulder playfully. “Like I can imagine you being much better!”

“I really wasn’t,” Korra snorts. “One time, when I was around seven or eight, Katara tried putting some water tribe beads into my hair as a way to celebrate Princess Yue’s ascension. Took me all of two minutes to wrestle them out— _with_  a few pieces of my own hair, I might add—and run away to go play with Naga instead.”

“How rebellious,” Asami giggles.

“I was a child of simple pleasures.” Korra smirks proudly. “Oh! And this other time, I was so desperate to skip my lessons with the sentries that I ‘accidentally’ started a fire in my room so they’d be too busy cleaning everything up to train me. I spent that whole afternoon on the harbor eating moon peaches with Naga until they found out what I’d done.” She wipes some sticky strands of hair from her forehead and grimaces at the memory. “They, uh, weren’t too pleased, but whatever. Beat that, Miss Sato.”

“I stole one of my dad’s satomobiles and drove it into a brewery when I was thirteen.”

Korra stares, mouth ajar.

Asami continues, “I had to go to the hospital and get stitches all down my back and my arm. I did get a pretty neat scar from it though. Beat _that_.”

As if she was waiting for the last bit of the story to serve as permission to find it funny, Korra sputters and rolls over onto her side with loud, full-bodied laughter.

“ _Spirits_ , Asami!” she wheezes when she catches her breath, “I thought I was a handful!”

“I’d like to think I gave little opportunity for dull moments,” Asami quips slyly.

As her laughter dies down, Korra transitions her weight and stretches onto her back with her hands stacked beneath her head.

“Man, did I have you pegged wrong! I’ve gotta admit how impressed I am by your pluck, Sato. What with my barefaced disregard for authority and your fearlessness, we would’ve made a pretty good team, huh?”

Asami’s laugh is genuine, but she gives Korra that wry smile again.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The wind whistles high and loud as it whips up atop the earth and rustles the trees.

Asami stands.

“How about we put our daring to the test?”

Korra puffs out her chest, a comeback ready on her tongue, but the words shrivel up when Asami pulls her shift over her head and unbuttons her skirt, letting it fall to the ground. Soon enough, she dons only a set of sheer black lingerie and a pair of stockings that she bends down to unfasten from a garter belt. True to her tale, a long silvery scar leads down her side.

“Care for a swim?”

Korra stares.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you speechless before. It’s really charming,” Asami observes, pulling off her boots.

Korra nearly screams when Asami advances towards her and tugs the hem of her tunic.

“Come on, Korra—bender or not, water’s in your blood, isn’t it? Surely you can’t turn this kind of offer down.”

With that, Asami darts down the bank, her strides long and graceful before she dives into the lake. Korra sits there for a long while, positive that she might pass out before she even takes another breath, but somehow finds it in herself to rise and lift her tunic off with shaky hands. Something that she once considered so small and insignificant begins to grow at a rate that she could not foresee, frenzied and remarkable within her.

Once she’s down to only her bindings and the short leggings under her slacks, Korra charges to the lake in a daze, spurred by the influence that the water and Asami have over her.

When she stops just short of the bank, her toes sinking into the spongy earth, Asami bobs some distance away and beckons her forward. Her hair is sleek and ink-black against her body, and her skin glistens brightly in the summer sun.

“Now or never, Avatar!”

Korra’s pulse quickens and she smiles, rearing her shoulders back before she dives in.

Tranquility engulfs Korra’s mind as soon as she makes contact, the water merging with her skin and making her body resonate with a low, blissful hum. It cleanses her—eradicates any sense of failure or humiliation that has clung to her since she seemingly lost everything. There is nothing missing now; there is only the alternation of currents passing by as she swims faster and farther. Not fleeing as much as she is searching—trying to reach out for something that she finally knows will be there waiting for her.

When it feels like she’s been swimming for days, she resurfaces and stops, arms treading by her sides as she tries to catch her breath. She blinks the water out of her eyes, turning frantically in search of Asami before a pair of arms encircles her waist.

“Welcome back, Avatar Korra,” she praises, kissing the young Avatar’s cheek.

Korra’s body is suddenly so weightless in the water that she thinks she must be flying. The architecture of the dream shifts around her again, making her head go light when the mountains and trees begin to transition in and out of focus. Everything is catastrophically indistinct until she turns to face Asami, who is clearer to Korra than she has ever been.

“I miss you so much.”

The words spill out of Korra’s mouth before she even has a chance to catch them and mold them into something a little less desperate. (A little less heartbreaking.) But they ring so true into the balmy air.

The dream flashes again, so violently this time that it leaves Korra shaken and disoriented when the water around her disappears and her feet sink back on the soft grass of the bank. A peal of thunder stings her eardrums, and she looks up to see that the summer sky from earlier has begun to mutate into something much ghastlier.

Her gaze darts to Asami, who now stands beside her, for some bit of reassurance or comfort. But when Korra glimpses her eyes brimming with tears, she understands all too well what must be happening.

(There is no way, she admonishes herself absently, that this could have lasted forever.)

Asami’s hand shoots for Korra’s forearm, and she pulls the Avatar roughly along when she dashes in the opposite direction of the oncoming storm. Korra shudders at the sight of the happier scene from before transforming grimly along with the sky. The breeze grows sluggish with moisture, dampening the ground beneath Korra’s feet as she scurries behind Asami and ducks to avoid the gnarled branches of dark, jagged trees.

When they finally come across the shrouded entrance of a cave, Asami hoists them both inside, her trembling hand still clutching Korra’s arm. For all of her uncertainty and apprehension concerning the dream crumbling down around them, Korra lifts her other hand and places it resolutely atop Asami’s.

Asami studies Korra for a long time before she comes closer and backs her against the solid wall of the cave. Korra cringes at the slabs of rock jutting into her shoulders, but Asami’s smooth, pale body pressed completely against hers proves an insistent distraction. She grinds her hips into Korra’s, sliding a hand up between the two of them to coast along the taut plane of her abdomen. Although her dark hair obscures most of her face, the green of her eyes bleeds through and bores into Korra’s when she leans down and rests her forehead against hers.

Overwhelmed, Korra stiffens under her, body rigid and awkward when the elder girl’s palm lies flat against Korra’s stomach and sidles up to the swell of her breasts within her bindings. Korra starts and whimpers when the hand slowly kneads her flesh, rough through the thick material, and Asami brushes the corner of Korra’s mouth with her lips. Korra turns into the contact, eager for more, but freezes when Asami finds the end of the bindings and begins unwrapping them from Korra’s torso.

“Asami,” she groans, slightly panicked, but Asami hushes her with a deep kiss.

Asami kisses with urgent skill, sweeping her tongue along Korra’s bottom lip before letting it roll languidly into her mouth. Heat starts to pool in Korra’s stomach until Asami takes Korra’s tongue between her lips, suckling it, and the feeling grows distinctly lower and more pronounced.

Korra gasps into the kiss, nearly biting Asami’s lip when the bindings fall and Asami’s hands replace them. Korra’s breasts are full and heavy in her grasp, and it takes no time for Asami to travel down Korra’s jaw and neck to kiss the sensitive flesh. Choking on her own breath, Korra leans her head back onto the wall, eyes squeezed shut as the heiress tweaks a nipple and closes her mouth over it, hot and wet. The softness of Asami’s tongue conflicts with the hard sharpness of her teeth, which pinch and tug at the skin with irregular pressure. Korra shudders intensely at Asami’s mouth, but it is no match for the tingle of agitation when Asami’s hand lowers itself from Korra’s other breast and slips down between her legs, stroking her firmly through the material of her shorts.

Korra whines and rocks her pelvis unconsciously into the stimulation, digging her fingernails into Asami’s scalp when she twists Korra’s nipple between her teeth and sucks on it in time with her hand. The arousal building up within her becomes intolerable. When Asami unlatches her mouth from Korra’s breast and lifts her head so that their eyes meet again, Korra begs her amidst a slew of clumsy kisses, gripping Asami’s hand with her own to force it against her in a physical plea.

Asami lingers for a few seconds more before she moves upward and slides her hand past the waistline of Korra’s shorts and through a tangle of damp dark curls. Korra hisses when Asami’s fingers draw a slick line to and from her clit, and sprawls dazedly against the wall once more. Asami’s touch is gentle, but Korra is too sensitive—flinching at every ridge of a fingertip or the smooth curve of a short nail. She already spasms with the imminence of an orgasm, but Asami moves with purposeful slowness, biting Korra’s earlobe and squeezing her thigh to steady her.

The wind howls outside, and Korra’s heart skips a beat when thunder claps again and a bolt of unnatural red tears across the sky. But Asami cups her cheek then, kissing her in earnest as she shifts her hand and eases a finger inside of her.

Korra breaks the kiss with a cry, bracing her arm around Asami’s back and burying her face into her neck. She is tight with nerves, but so wet that all it takes is some brief soothing on Asami’s part to slip in completely. Korra relaxes gradually until she is able to accommodate a second finger that Asami pumps leisurely into her. Her breathing gruff, Korra attempts to align her hips better before Asami drags her free hand down Korra’s thigh and yanks her leg up. Korra hooks it instinctively around the older girl and pulls them closer together, while Asami gains better access and curls long fingers up into soft, susceptible flesh.

Korra rasps something unintelligible and secures her lips to a throbbing vein in Asami’s throat. Pawing greedily at her breasts through the scratchy lace, Korra’s hands eventually slip under the bra and massage them with ferocious enthusiasm. Asami pants softly, the skin below her collarbone flushing a deep red. Korra’s hands are wide and strong and brusque—so different from Asami’s cleverer ones. But despite all of her experience in doing so, Korra cannot bring herself to make comparisons between them now. She is too upset—too intent on taking back this girl she never had the time to properly know or understand.

“ _Asami_ ,” the Avatar moans, high-pitched and desperate. Their breath mingles warm and heady between their bodies.

Asami kisses Korra without a second thought, gaining momentum as the Avatar grows more comfortable with Asami inside of her. Quickening her pace, Asami pushes her fingers deeper inside of Korra with every thrust, weighing the heel of her palm against her soaked clit. Korra’s body tremors slightly, and she looks up at Asami with hooded, dark eyes, lips swollen pink and parted with ragged breathing. As they reach a fixed, albeit frantic tempo, Korra knows she’s close, tensing around Asami’s fingers. Instead of delaying Korra’s climax this time, the heiress works more furiously into her,  _demanding_  it from her—so relentless that Korra’s nails leave thin red depressions in the pale skin of Asami’s back.

“You wanted to know why I called you ‘Avatar,’” Asami’s recalls breathlessly. Korra looks up into her eyes, perplexed, until the heiress leans down and bites the skin of Korra’s throat, sucking hard. Korra actually screams out, her body liquefying in Asami’s arms.

Another bolt of lightning strikes in the distance, and Korra can hear the horrible sound of tree bark splitting and catching fire under the heat.

“Honestly, why wouldn’t I?” she continues, voice hoarse. Her breath is hot when she takes Korra’s earlobe between her teeth again, nibbling upwards until she can lap broadly at the shell. The onset of Korra’s climax is nigh unbearable, and she finds herself gathering the nerve to thread her fingers through Asami’s hair and force her up again for a brief, obstinate kiss. The elder girl’s expression is strained with frustration when she moves away, and Korra can see the sorrow resurfacing again. She wants to do anything to stop it—to hold her close and console her—but Asami has reached such a maddening pace that Korra can only throw her head to one side and attempt to smother the sob that escapes her lips. She gives a weak kiss to Asami’s shoulder, swirling her tongue along the sinew of elegant musculature.

“It’s what you are—” Asami’s hand jerks; Korra’s hips buck. “—what you always will be.” Asami kisses Korra’s temple; sifts a hand through her hair. “Why would I call you anything different?”

Korra comes violently around Asami, her vision mottled with flashes of black and white.

Time seems to stop in that short moment afterwards. Asami kisses Korra with dissonant tenderness as she brings her down, guiding her fingers slowly out of her to draw lazy shapes on the inside of her quivering thigh. The kiss scales the bridge of Korra’s nose, over her cheek and eyelid until it rests idly against her sweat-sheened brow. Asami snakes her arms protectively around her smaller form and releases a broken sigh. There is something so staggering about Asami’s lips replacing the phantom feeling of Amon against her forehead: so gluttonous and invasive when juxtaposed with Asami’s benevolence. Korra embraces the heiress with greater conviction, holding back tears as she glances outside the mouth of the cave and into a picture of total chaos.

The skyline has collapsed completely, devoured by the red sky. In the light of what remains of the cracked, fragmented sun, Korra sees a spiderlike shadow claw its way towards them, consuming the last bits of green grass and fire lilies at the entrance. Korra closes her eyes in one final act of defiance, anchoring herself to Asami’s body.

_‘I’m sorry,’_  Korra wants to say—sorry for everything that has happened—sorrier for Asami than she thinks she will ever be for herself. Asami only holds her closer.

“You will survive this, Korra.”

It is the last thing she hears before the arms around her disappear and there is nothing.

.

When Korra finally wakes, frantic and stifled in the too-dark night, she recoils at the feeling of a new kind of grief blooming viciously in her heart.


End file.
